Christine sighs and and looks up with a sudden edge of nervousness before reaching into her purse. She pulls a photo of a dark haired white male about her age, with boyish good looks. "T-this is Christopher Atwell, Computer millionare at large.. and, well, until a month ago, that was me."
She looked at me in fear like I would toss her out "I wouldnt' blame you if you dont believe me, *I* would not believe me!"
Bingo! My senses were right again. This was going to be a good one. So far, nothing feels false... I patted her hand encouragingly "I've had stranger cases, my dear. So far, I feel I should believe you. Perhaps if you explain?"
She nodded and sniffled into a kleenex from my desk "Well, One of my competetors was trying a hostile takeover of my company, but I stopped him cold. A week later, a package arrived for me. My security scanned and OKed it, no biologicals or bombs... or so we thought. I opened it to find this..."
At this point, she brought out a "Barbie's friend Skipper" doll and the packaging it came in.
"The package came open when I opened the shipping box, and a pink mist escaped into the room. I felt dizzy... I felt my body churning and swelling in all the wrong places, and my skin began to darken. About then, I went unconscious. When I woke up, I was a woman. Fortunately, I was too shocked to scream when I found out."
I nodded "How have you been able to explain "Christopher's" absense?"
She gave a soft giggle "I own THE newest and best computer company. I couldnt be everywhere at once so I set up a system of digital video clips and AIs to answer for me over the video phones. It's not unusual to not see me face to face for a couple months at a time. I also "hired" Christine as my personal secretary. It took my AIs an hour to create this identity, but it's worked so far. Unfortunately, I'm running out of time. My competetor, Gill Bates of Futomics has issued an ultimatum; give him the company and be restored, or he will force an incident to show I have "dissappeared" and toss me out into the street as a crazy woman."
She sniffled and looked pleadingly "I dont know what to do. I sent this to one of my labs, with a note outlining my "suspicions of a mutagen" on the sample. They cant find any traces. At this point, it's either a bioweapon or the supernatural. Please help me! I'll pay anything you want if you can find a cure!"
I helped wipe her tears "Dont worry, I accept the case."
This promised to be one fun case...